In May we will publish our seventh novel, Agenda for Murder. As the title suggests, it's a murder mystery with a political theme. The political theme stems from Agenda 21, the United Nations' action plan to protect the environment.
Don’t turn away because we mentioned politics. The story is a rollicking good mystery told
through the words and actions of memorable characters. And in its understated way it’s often very
funny.
FORT WAYNE
The story takes place in Fort Wayne.
Surprisingly, the City of Fort Wayne embraces the tenets of
Agenda 21, a United Nations’ action plan for land use that ostensibly protects
the environment. But in protecting the
environment, Agenda 21 pushes local governments to become tyrannical. Individual landowners remain responsible for
taxes, insurance, and maintenance but control of its use is transferred to the
government and to unaccountable so-called “stakeholders” who have no tangible
stake in anything.
Agenda 21 rests on a number of vicious and unsupported
assumptions: the environment is fragile
and far more precious than human beings; government makes better decisions than
individuals; some people should work hard to support everyone else; socialism
is better than capitalism; religious views have no place in public life; the
United States has too much freedom, too many resources, and too much
prosperity.
Many Agenda 21 supporters view humans -- other than
themselves, of course -- as a virus, a parasite, a plague infecting Mother
Earth.
Fort Wayne, the City of Churches, was once listed on various
websites as a member of the International Council for Local Environmental
Initiatives, an organization of local governments adopting Agenda 21
principles. It is apparently no longer a
member, but many of its policies about land use (including conversion of
farmland to other uses), water conservation, waste disposal, landscaping, rain
collection, greenways, sewerage, and recycling (among others) reflect the UN’s
views. Little by little, these policies
limit individual freedom in the name of the general welfare.
Under Agenda 21, the individual has the importance of a bug;
the collective has the importance of an emperor.
The City of Fort Wayne in our novel is a fictional version
of the real city. In the book, the
fictional Planning Department imposes requirements on Steve Wright, a local
developer, that are not supported in law.
Remember, the Planning Department is fictional. What is not fictional is that government agencies
at all levels frequently try to impose more onerous requirements on developers
than the law allows. The developer’s
choice is to accede to the heightened, costly, and unlawful requirements or
shoulder the very costly burdens of delays and court fights.
The reader can judge for himself whether some of the real
city may be glimpsed in the fictional.
AGENDA 21
Agenda 21 undermines the Fourth and Fifth Amendments to the
U.S. Constitution protecting individual rights to property and to due process and
just compensation if property is confiscated for public use. The theory of Agenda 21 supporters is that
all property belongs to the public or the government. Agenda 21 also undermines national
sovereignty on the theory that to protect “human rights” (which to the U.N.
means those granted by global government, not God) and to promote social
justice (which can only be defined in the collective) all nations should enact
the same laws as dictated by a global one-world order.
COMPARISON OF
AGENDA 21 TO SCRIPTURE
Agenda 21 is based on a philosophy that is the opposite of
the Judaeo-Christian reading of Scripture.
Here are a few comparisons:
Scripture:
God created man in his own image.
Agenda 21:
Man is nothing special but merely an unhappy accident of evolution.
Scripture:
God created everything in the universe.
Agenda 21:
The universe mysteriously came into existence out of nothing all by
itself.
Scripture:
God created what we call nature.
Agenda 21:
Mother Nature has nothing to do with God.
Scripture:
God created both man and land animals on the sixth day.
Agenda 21:
Animals evolved first and therefore own all the land as habitat.
Scripture:
God blessed mankind.
Agenda 21:
Mankind is a nuisance, a plague, a parasite, a virus.
Scripture:
God told us to be fruitful and
increase in number.
Agenda 21:
The human population has to be reduced by unspecified means -- no doubt
sparing Agenda 21 supporters.
Scripture:
God told us to fill the earth.
Agenda 21:
Humans should be prevented from using or occupying as much land as
possible.
Scripture:
God told us to subdue the earth and rule over it.
Agenda 21:
Mankind is subservient to the earth.
Scripture:
God placed Adam and Eve in a garden and after the Fall told Adam to till
the soil.
Agenda 21:
Wilderness from which humans are barred is preferable to gardens, parks,
and manicured lawns, and farms are a major source of pollution.
Scripture:
God gave mankind free will to choose between good and evil.
Agenda 21:
Only the ruling elite can identify what is “good” and the “good” must be
forced upon everyone by ridicule, rules, fines, taxes, useless certifications,
trade barriers, penalties, jail time, deprivation, and confiscation.
Scripture:
Adam was to earn his living by the sweat of his brow.
Agenda 21:
All the slackers and shirkers also earn their living by the sweat of
Adam’s brow.
The list is endless but we’ll stop here. Our view is that Agenda 21 is diabolical in
its hatred of mankind and its worship of the Creation (which Agenda 21
supporters do not admit is a creation) rather than the Creator.
EXCITING
MYSTERY
But we have not written a polemic on Agenda 21. We write fiction -- exciting mysteries, we
hope.
So our book is about the character of the people pushing the
UN’s political views on a wide range of issues:
freedom of speech and religion, control of capital, use of fossil fuels,
animal rights, self-defense, equality of outcome, population control -- and, of
course, land use. One need only get on
the Internet to find dozens of instances in which one-world globalists are
idolators, sexual perverts, rapists, scam artists, slackers, thieves, and even
murderers. The real world is rich with
examples of do-gooder hypocrites whose antics would be hilarious if the
consequences weren’t so vile. We have
not based our characters on real-world people, however. They are products of our imagination.
One of the central characters pushing Agenda 21 in our book
is a man who claims to be a God-fearing man, though none of his actions support
that claim. He’s the “goodwill
ambassador” for the Midwest Community Alliance for Social Development (a
fictional organization with characteristics of real ones). As nefarious characters often do, he misuses
Scripture to cloak his wolfish purposes in sheepskin. As the story developed, we found him throwing
out threats taken from the Bible.
BIBLICAL
ILLITERACY
The Bible is the richest source of common phrases anyone can
find, yet most people don’t know that.
The reason? They don’t read the Bible. They use biblical phrases without knowing the
source, the context, or the meaning, or they confuse what is biblical with what
is secular. That is true even in the
United States, where most people claim to be Christian.
Researchers George Gallup and Jim Castelli say that we are a
nation of Bible illiterates, either not recognizing the words of Scripture or
wrongly attributing cultural clichés to the Bible. For example, many people think the Sermon on
the Mount was preached by Billy Graham, Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife, and Sodom
and Gomorrah were man and wife. Others
wrongly believe that the saying “God helps those who help themselves” is a
Bible proverb and that the primary teaching of the Bible is to take care of
one’s family.
Still other people know the Bible but deliberately misuse
it. Here are a few of the biblical
phrases our “goodwill ambassador” throws around.
BIBLICAL
PHRASES
Reap the
whirlwind: In Chapter 2, the
Ambassador threatens Scut, the owner of a gentleman’s club, with reaping the
whirlwind if he doesn’t hand over protection money to the Alliance. The phrase, which is found in numerous
passages in the Bible, predicts bad consequences for doing evil, such as
worshiping idols. In our book, the
threat is used ironically, for it is the Ambassador, who worships idols --
himself and the gods of global oppression -- and thus it is he who will reap
the whirlwind. And for Scut to refuse to
be extorted is not to do evil, so the threat is misdirected.
I know where
you live: In Chapter 32, the
Ambassador once again threatens Scut, who turns the tables by disclosing the
Ambassador’s sexual perversion. This
time the Ambassador says he knows where Scut lives, suggesting that he can find
and kill Scut. In Revelation, Jesus
warns the church in Pergamum that He knows where they live -- where Satan has
his throne. In other words, He knows
that in their hearts they worship idols.
In common usage, the phrase is a threat of violence, and
that is how the Ambassador uses it.
The writing is
on the wall: In Chapter 52, the
Ambassador is told that he has a week to pay the enormous bills he’s charged to
his friend’s law firm. The Ambassador is
enraged and screams out the Aramaic words written on the wall in the book of
Daniel (Daniel 5: 25, 26). The
inscription on the wall is “MENE, MENE, TEKEL, PARSIN,” Aramaic words for
weights or coins (mina, shekel and half mina/shekel). The words are inscrutable to everyone but Daniel,
who is informed by God as to their meaning.
The words, when properly interpreted, warn King Belshazzar that his days
are numbered, he’s been found wanting, and his kingdom will be given to Darius
the Mede.
Again, the Ambassador’s use of these words is both serious
and ironic. Serious, because the
Ambassador reveals his murderous intentions toward people who thwart him, even
his best friend. And ironic, because in
reality it is the Ambassador’s days that are numbered, not his friend’s.
Love of money: Also in Chapter 52, the Ambassador and his
lawyer friend accuse each other of loving money. Those are serious charges and both are
true. Even some Christians are confused
about God’s view of money, however. Many
passages in Scripture condemn not money but the love of money, for one cannot love both God and
money. God made the patriarchs and the
kings of Israel, especially David and Solomon, very rich indeed. He does not condemn prosperity or material
comfort. He warns, however, that money
should not become an idol, and the Bible contains many examples of how easy it
is to forget God as the source of all blessings when one is rich.
I take shadow
in God’s wings:
In Chapter 57, a cigarette lighter taken as a souvenir by a murderer is
returned to the victim’s mother, together with a business card with the
handwritten message, “I take shadow in God’s wings,” a paraphrase of a
sentiment expressed in Psalm 17:8, where David seeks protection from his mortal
enemies. The signature on the card is
meant to mislead the victim’s mother about the identity of the murderer. The Bible phrase twists King David’s prayer
into its opposite meaning: the evil
murderer claims that God Himself is protecting him from punishment.
SEXUAL
PERVERSION
Some of our readers want to see more sex in our books. Unlike romance novels, murder mysteries do
not really lend themselves to explicit sexual scenes, and we are incapable of
writing them anyway.
However, when we were about to start Agenda for Murder,
two separate, unrelated sources told us about sex clubs in Fort Wayne. We never had the courage to check them out
personally, even in the name of research, but we’ve read about them. As it happens, their existence fit perfectly
with the vices of two of our central characters. How often has a politician or international
official or famous movie star or admired corporate executive or churchman been
publicly humiliated when a sexual perversion surfaced -- exhibitionism, secret
homosexuality, infidelity, pedophilia, addiction to pornography, even
rape. Sex is frequently the vice of
choice for the rich, famous, and powerful.
Thus, in Agenda
for Murder, the Free Willys, a loose collection of swingers, are the
inspiration for the more formal Caviar Club, an upscale nightclub for swingers
founded and frequented by our central characters who wear virtuous faces in
public. In fact, the climactic scene
takes place in The Caviar Club. The
scenes in The Caviar Club are as funny as they are disgusting.
In short, Agenda
for Murder has much more to say about sex than our previous books, but
hunting for the sexy scenes won’t be as titillating as doing the same thing in
a book by Jackie Collins or Danielle Steele.
SERENDIPITY
We began writing Agenda
for Murder the second week of January.
Besides entertaining and mystifying our readers, we intended to expose
the dark side of Agenda 21. One of
Agenda 21’s claims is that it will produce a sustainable, eco-friendly life for
all by using as few natural resources and as little carbon-based energy as
possible -- by subjugating human needs to protection of Mother Earth. So what happens in February during the Super
Bowl in New Orleans’ super eco-friendly Mercedes-Benz stadium? The lights go out for over half an hour. We couldn’t pass that one up.
DIVERSITY
Diversity is the catchword of the bigoted.
Bigots see everything in terms of race, religion, age, and
gender -- and also academic degrees, ethnicity, and sexual persuasion. They see everyone but themselves as
bigots. That’s how our fictional
Ambassador, who makes cheap appeals to race to one of the other black men in
the book, sees the world. That’s how our
young people are being taught by a largely left-wing academia to see the world.
In our fictional world, diversity is not a goal but but a
side benefit of -- take your pick -- just policy, humane tradition, the
Judaeo-Christian ethos, a meritocracy, a republic with a constitution like
ours, or just living life as it comes.
The characters in our stories are diverse, not because we
force the issue, but because we draw from all aspects of life -- and this book
references the United Nations, after all.
Thus, our characters include business owners and
entrepreneurs, doctors and lawyers, stylists and secretaries and cashiers, city
planners and police detectives, investigative reporters and interior decorators,
and impresarios of sex clubs.
They include Christians and Jews and the unaffiliated along
the continuum of faith from believers to agnostics to atheists.
Most are straight but one man in the jargon of Sex and the City
is a gay straight man.
They are white, black, American Indian, Asian, Hispanic,
African and various mixtures thereof.
Some are very rich, others not at all, and most struggle to
rise to or stay in the middle class.
Some hold doctorates, some never went to college. Wisdom and education are not perfectly
correlated.
None of our characters are perfect. Some claim to be good but aren’t; others
claim no virtue at all but won’t have a hard time answering to God. And then there are the people you don’t want
to meet in a dark alley.
EPIGRAPHS
We like epigraphs -- beginning quotations -- before each of
the three parts of the novel. In this
case, before each part, we quote one of the ten commandments, a quotation from
Margaret Thatcher, and a two-line statement purportedly from a former U.S.
ambassador to the United Nations.
The Bible quotations are three of the ten commandments,
starting with covetousness and leading to theft and murder. Covetousness underlies Agenda 21. Most of the nations belonging to the United
Nations hate the United States and envy its prosperity. Sometimes they are blatant about the desire
to transfer our wealth to them.
Sometimes they conceal the envy in virtuous-sounding policies, such as
Agenda 21. Unchecked covetousness when
thwarted leads to other crimes, such as theft and murder.
Margaret Thatcher’s pronouncements are both wise and funny,
especially the one about the Good Samaritan.
Adding them as epigraphs was an afterthought. Sadly, she died while we were writing the
book. The worldwide media coverage of
her career reminded us of how trenchant her thinking was.
The mocking quotes from an unnamed ambassador are wholly the
creation of our dark minds. One reader
told us she thought we were quoting former ambassador John Bolton because the astringency
and humor sound like him. But we
aren’t. We’re flattered, though, if
people think an insider really said those things.
SWINGERS IN THE
NEWS
As coincidence would have it, the same month we were
readying Agenda for
Murder for publication, Glo,
a local women’s periodical, contained a feature by Barb Sieminski about
swingers in Fort Wayne, the City of Churches.
The article as edited makes the vice seem almost reasonable and
defensible. The overall tone is of moral
relativism: swinging is just as virtuous
as marital fidelity -- maybe more virtuous.
The only reason swingers have to keep their identities secret is not the
shameful nature of their perversion but the viciousness of the rest of the
world, which is ignorant and judgmental.
Here’s the comment submitted by the Scribe to Glo’s editor.
As always, Barb Sieminski’s latest article about swingers is
well written and interesting, but it reads as if something had been edited out.
The quotes from a swinging couple “justify” or “excuse” the perversion:
everybody cheats (everybody?), swinging keeps us from cheating (what do you
think you’re doing?), our love is unconditional (then why demean it?), we go
home together (that’s a relief!), it’s legal (but not moral), we’d be victims
if people knew who we were (oh, those rampaging religious nuts!), we have safe
sex (exactly how safe?), our kids know nothing about what we do (oh, sure!),
and we’re going to get married some day (why?).
Comparing swingers to Masons is ludicrous; Masons do not hide their
identities and they aren’t hedonists.
The fact that Spinner’s mother was a swinger is a thread to be followed
all the way into the labyrinth. And
unless more is revealed about what swingers actually do, the sin is air-brushed
out of the picture and moral relativism takes over.
